A former Johnson County resident knew she wanted to do something to save lives.
Now, Mackenzie Thompson has played a part in helping train 1 million people in CPR around the world.
Thompson, a graduate of Center Grove High School, works at the Disque Foundation. The Indiana-based organization offers free CPR training locally, throughout the country and around the world.
Since it was founded in 2012, the group has trained more than a million people, a milestone reached this year.
“It just meant that we were really doing things right,” Thompson said.
Thompson, a 2012 Center Grove High School graduate, interned at the Disque Foundation as a student at Indiana University. After graduating, she accepted a job with the foundation, which provides CPR training around the world.
Now living in New York, Thompson is the outreach associate for Disque, handling a large portion of the organization’s marketing services.
“It’s empowering to know what I work on everyday helps so many other people,” Thompson said.
The Disque Foundation sends associates to different communities to offer its free services. There, not only do they help people become certified in CPR, they also train people to specifically help teach others in their community. The program is also offered for free online.
The foundation has spread its activities globally, focused not only in the U.S. but in parts of the world that need it most. Thompson recently returned from her second trip to Kenya, where local doctors and nurses were trained in CPR and were very grateful for the foundation’s help.
Her initial trip was the first time she saw the training in action.
“It was very eye-opening to see our certifications and trainings being used for the first time. Especially in such an underserved area,” Thompson said. “It gave me a new reason to do more with the company because I could see how impactful is was to others.”
While working in her job at the foundation, Thompson did not expect the resistance she would encounter getting people to sign up for the training. Though many other groups offer similar CPR training, the Disque Foundation does it at no cost.
“It’s amazing how difficult it is to get people to do something that’s free,” she said.
Throughout the entire Disque Foundation organization, excitement has built around reaching the milestone goal of 1 million people served. She said the team amped up its social media efforts to attract more people to the trainings, including having healthcare industry leaders promote the foundation on their social media pages.
Their efforts resulted in reaching its goal one year earlier than expected, Thompson said.
With that significant goal reached, Thompson is ready to keep spreading the Disque Foundation’s life-saving message. She has no plans of leaving the foundation any time soon, she said.
Around the world, there are over 135 million cardiovascular deaths each year, according to the American Heart Association. That is what makes CPR certification so vital, particularly in areas like Kenya where fewer medical resources exist.
“It is very important that this information is known globally,” she said.
